ALL SCI-FI Forum Index ALL SCI-FI
The place to “find your people”.
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

The Last Starfighter (1984)
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi Movies from 1970 to 2000
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
ralfy
Mission Specialist


Joined: 23 Sep 2014
Posts: 488

PostPosted: Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can also download and play the free video game here:

http://www.roguesynapse.com/games/last_starfighter.php
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Gord Green
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 06 Oct 2014
Posts: 2940
Location: Buffalo, NY

PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2021 9:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AT LAST! A SEQUEL TO THE LAST STARFIGHTER!

See the promo "sizzle reel" on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAvN9000o4A

A sequel to 1984's The Last Starfighter is closer to happening than it's ever been, screenwriter Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) revealed during a Twitch stream Thursday afternoon. "[We are] right on the one-yard line," he said. "After pushing the boulder uphill for years, we are very, very close ... I believe it will happen."

Working with the first movie's scribe, Jonathan Betuel, the writer has come up with a pitch for a follow-up entitled The Last Starfighters. He also showed off a sizzle reel of concept art (drawn by Matt Allsopp) set to a newly-orchestrated version of Craig Safan's theme arranged by Chris Tilton.

"We weren't interested in re-inventing or rebooting or remaking the movie," Whitta explained. "We wanted to do a sequel that kept the original in canon; which kept the original storyline and honored the original.

The idea was to pass the torch to a new generation of heroes in the same way that The Force Awakens does. You wanted to see Han Solo and Princess Leia, but at the same time, we all knew that they weren't gonna be the heroes of the movie going forward. It was a new, young [cast]: Rey, Finn, Poe. That movie was about passing the torch and we wanted to do a movie that [does the same]. We called it a 'requel.' It's a sequel, but it also kind of reboots and brings the franchise back."

"That's what we want the movie to sound like [and] that's kind of what we want the movie to look like," Whitta added, while voicing his hope that the internet can help create even more momentum for the sequel, à la 2016's Deadpool. "Jonathan and I are working really, really hard to try and make this movie a reality ... Maybe it'll help. Like I said, I think we're already very close, but anytime that there's social media buzz and people get excited about, it helps other people get excited as well. Hopefully, one day you'll see it in a movie theater. It might look and sound a little bit like that. That's the movie Jonathan and I are excited about making."

“This is a movie with all the bells and whistles, and it won’t presuppose that you’ve seen the original film,” Betuel said last fall. “There’ll be references here and there, but it’ll carry the saga forward.”

Directed by Nick Castle (famous for playing Michael Meyers throughout the Halloween series), The Last Starfighter is notable for its early use of CGI techniques first adopted by Disney's Tron two years earlier. Its story centers around Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), an impoverished teenager living in a trailer park who is recruited into a cosmic battle after beating a video game meant to discover the galaxy's greatest warriors. Despite a lackluster box office run of $28 million in North America, the movie has gained a cult status over the decades, inspiring scores of '80s kids like Whitta and best-selling author Ernest Cline (Ready Player One, Armada).

"The reason why The Last Starfighter is one of the only movies from the 1980s that hasn't been remade yet is not because there's no interest from Hollywood. There's huge interest for it," Whitta said. "The real reason is because Jon, through some crazy loophole of the way that his contract was written ... still controls a small piece of the rights and no one can make it without his cooperation. That's why he's turned down all these offers to make the sh***y straight-to-DVD version over the years because he's holding out for the big version that we now want to make."

FROM SYFI WIRE
Original article here:

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-last-starfighter-sequel-garry-whitta-sizzle-reel

_________________
There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Fri Mar 26, 2021 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Wow, Gord, this is great news! Very Happy

I quoted the parts that really encouraged me to have high expectations for the project.


Gord Green wrote:
"We weren't interested in re-inventing or rebooting or remaking the movie," Whitta explained. "We wanted to do a sequel that kept the original in canon; which kept the original storyline and honored the original. "

"The real reason [it hasn't been remade] is because [Jonathan Betuel, the writer], through some crazy loophole of the way that his contract was written . . . still controls a small piece of the rights and no one can make it without his cooperation. That's why he's turned down all these offers to make the sh***y straight-to-DVD version over the years because he's holding out for the big version that we now want to make."

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Maurice
Mission Specialist


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 460
Location: 3rd Rock

PostPosted: Tue May 04, 2021 3:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The rights to the film have always been complicated. I'll believe it when it actually goes into production.
_________________
* * *
"The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."
― Orson Welles
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3400
Location: New York

PostPosted: Wed Oct 13, 2021 6:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Spike's review is absolutely on the money, well done amigo.

Writer Jonathan R. Betuel's conception for the movie was the result of walking into a video arcade one day and seeing a boy engrossed playing a video game. Betuel was also reading author T. H. White's book The Once and Future King which was about King Arthur.

What if a video game machine was a present day stone like the one that held the magical Excalibur sword that led the young Arthur to his incredible destiny?

The original setting for the story had Alex and his family in the suburbs. Producers felt that since Steven Spielberg had set three of his movies in the 'burbs---Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T., The Extra Terrestrial (1982), and Poltergeist (1982)---that a different setting would be better.

~ See kids, sometimes movie producers can actually offer a good idea for a film. Not often, but still...

Director Nick Castle would direct the wonderful movie The Boy Who Could Fly (1986).

Writer Jonathan R. Betuel would write and direct My Science Project for Disney.

Alex & Maggie's names were originally Skip & Penny. However, Castle felt those names were "too cartoony" sounding.

~Good call Nick.

Robert Preston provided the voice of the video game Alex played.

Robin Williams passed on the role of the evil alien, Xur.

The movie was shot in 40 days.

~ That's incredible considering most films have a 90 day filming schedule.

Ron Cobb was the production designer and crucial to the film's success. Ron had worked on Star Wars & Alien.

Ron was unhappy with the visual quality of the scene where the Gun Star was hiding inside the asteroid. He thought the space craft looked like melted ice cream. Unfortunately there was not enough time or money to re-shoot it.

The cast and crew loved working with Robert Preston. Sadly, he would die only 4 years after the movie.

The budget for the film was $14,000,000 and made $28,000,000.

Marvel Comics published an adaptation of the movie.

Writer Alan Dean Foster wrote the novelization of the film.

~ ADF did a superb job on adapting & fleshing out the episodes from Star Trek: The Animated Series to novels.

The Last Starfighter was overshadowed by The Karate Kid which came out the same time.

Composer Craig Safan did a marvelous job on the music score for TLS.

The CGI on film comprises 27 minutes and involved 300 scenes of computer graphics. This was an enormous amount of CGI seen on film for the time.

The Starcar designed by Gene Winfield was a working vehicle based upon his Spinner flying autos for Blade Runner.

The vehicle was also based upon the DeLorean automobile.

~ So time travel & flight all in one car! What's not to like?

Test audiences responded so well to the scenes of Beta-Alex in the trailer park that director Nick Castle added more scenes.

Dan O'Herlihy who played the alien Grig also played Grig's wife in the photo of Grig's family.

Nick Castle felt that Robert Preston was perfectly cast. He was essentially playing the archetypal flim-flam man that he had played in the 1962 musical The Music man.

Lance Guest's (Alex) father was a Navy fighter pilot.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Listening to this magnificent theme to The Last Starfighter always gets so jazzed up I can't control my enthusiasm — even when I play it on my laptop rather than my big stereo system.

Admittedly the laptop has these great external speakers that do a fantastic job. Just $18.17 from Amazon, and the base has blue lights the color of Robby's voice tubes!

So, click on the link below and get yourself jazzed up like I do!
Cool

Craig Safan The Last Starfighter - Extended by Gilles Nuytens


__________

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3400
Location: New York

PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2022 4:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Special Effects: The History and the Technique by Richard Rickitt

An important landmark in the development of computer-generated images (or "Digital Scene Simulation', as it was then commonly called), The Last Starfighter created all of its spaceship shots digitally.

The new technology was still lacking many of the subtleties that make today's animation so convincing---most surfaces look too 'perfect' and there is no motion blur in shots of fast-moving spaceships.

However, this film made the potential of the technique obvious.

The building and animation of computer models took two and a half years using a $15 million Cray Supercomputer---one of the most powerful computers in the world at that time.

Gary Demos and John Whitney Jnr received a Scientific and Technical Academy Award for 'the practical simulation of motion picture photography by means of computer-generated images'.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: How well I remember first seeing The Last Starfighter with my buddies when it first came out back in 1984.

Yes, we saw that the CGI were too clean and smooth and lacking a certain reality. But we also were awed by the fact that this film's visual effects were created and executed via a computer and not by traditional model work that had always been used in films and television up to then.

We knew that this was only the beginning journey of utilizing CGI. It was going to evolve technically and get better and better with time. It was going to be able to do things that had not been possible before with models.

It was going to be groundbreaking for the special effects industry.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi Movies from 1970 to 2000 All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3
Page 3 of 3

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group